The role of women in Battlestar Galactica

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I'm watching the new Battlestar Galactica miniseries for the third time. It's the original Sci Fi channel uncut version. The 3 hour version aired on NBC the other night cut out a lot of dialogue that gave some enticing flesh to the skeleton of the story. Of course they left in all of the sex, feh. Any way, so I'm watching the show and I keep thinking about a line that was cut from the 3 hour version of the show. President Roslin remarks to Commander Adama something along the lines of with less than 50,000 of the human race left they needed to get down to the business of having babies to help preserve the race.

In this new version of the late 1970s show two of the main characters, namely Starbuck and Boomer, are now women. In the world of Battlestar Galactica women are fully integrated into the military. They do everything the boys do. Presumably in the civilian arena women do everything the men do as well. So what I keep wondering is, now that humanity is in a position where reproduction is of the utmost importance how will this effect the roles of women? We are the means by which the race propagates itself after all. We bear the children and, in general, are the best at nurturing and rearing them.

If you've only got 50,000 max people left propagation of the species would have to be one of your top priorities. Would you continue to risk potential mothers in such high risk positions as fighter pilots? Will the show address this aspect of the predicament?

Read Michael King's review of the new series, This is not your father's Galactica.

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